Exposure: Clint Eastwood

On shooting J. Edgar with Tom Stern, ASC and a judicious use of close-ups.

Over the course of winning four Oscars, director/producer/actor Clint Eastwood has built a wide-ranging resume – everything from comedies, thrillers and those famously iconic Westerns, to complex and sophisticated adult dramas. A consummate craftsman, whose career stretches all the way back to the studio contract system, Eastwood appears at ease in any genre he chooses. That’s never been more true than recent non-fiction projects like Invictus, Letters from Iwo Jima, Flags of our Fathers, and his newest, J. Edgar, a biopic about the FBI’s powerful long-standing chief. An “actor’s director,” who always puts his cast first, Eastwood is also famously efficient with schedules and budgets. Many say his ease behind the camera stems from the confidence he places in the collaborators he’s brought along over decades. Or as cinematographer Tom Stern, ASC (now on his seventh Eastwood project) describes the many creative partnerships: “a jazz quintet,” in that Eastwood is the leader, but gives everyone the freedom to contribute with their own particular talents. How fitting that the man who gave us Bird approaches filmmaking as one inspired piece of improvisation, where every single person on the set has a key note to play.

ICG: What was it about J. Edgar Hoover that captured your interest? Clint Eastwood: I liked the script very much. I had grown up with Hoover being the top cop in the country and all that. We didn’t know much about him because we didn’t live in the information age that we live in now. He was always a large figure on the scene. As the years went by you always heard about the controversies, whether or not he was taping people or whatever he was doing. It just seemed like an interesting subject to do. [Dustin] Lance [Black] wrote a really nice script.